Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Ten Ton Hammer:  How are things going with Champions Online: Revelations?

Bill:  I’m really blown away by it, we were really happy to get it out onto the PTS.  It is the biggest thing we have put out since the game launched so we are giving it plenty of time in testing, and have been getting great feedback so that we can make it as polished as possible.Other than fixing the odd things that crop up and break when something else gets fixed, we are pretty much delving down into those microscopic bugs, and that’s really exciting.

It’s a blast, we were just playing it in initial testing and the team has gone all out to make it the coolest thing out there, it’s easily the best content we have had in the game.  It looks amazing, it’s great to play and there are some really inventive missions in there.

Craig: It is some of the best stuff that Cryptic has made at all.

Ten Ton Hammer:  What’s in store for STO in the next few months?

Craig:  We will be putting out the first update, Season One, in the next couple of weeks.  After that we want to try and react as fast as possible to the community and give them what they want to see.  “This features done? Ok let’s get it out, this feature is done? Ok let’s just get it out.” Things like a difficulty slider, death penalty, more bridge officer things , enhancing memory alpha, doing those as fast as possible and getting them out to the community as soon as possible is what we are really doing over the next few months with Star Trek.

Ten Ton Hammer: About Bridge Officers, is there any plan to make advancement more transparent?

Craig: I think that there is a lot of complexity in Star Trek Online that is not readily accessible and it’s very difficult to see “well if I add to this skill what are my powers? What weapons of mine are actually improving?”, so there are a lot of things we have planned UI wise to really improve that.  It goes for the bridge officers too, “is this skill going to help me? Is this skill actually going to be useable on the ship that I have right now?” Yeah there are a lot of usability things that we can do, and you continually add to the game to make it more in your face and better for the user.

Ten Ton Hammer: We have a one word question that should encompass a lot of what players are anxious to hear about, and that is: Klingons?

Craig: Oh yes, Klingons! So we have this clear vision for Klingons and this clear plan for Klingons that is drastically different than Federation gameplay, very PvP oriented and a very different path for advancement, and we have heard the community and they will be getting some love in the next couple of updates.  Update One has Klingon star clusters in it, we have transferred a lot of the fleet actions over so that they have that PvE content as well. They are getting customizable ships now, so that when you get your Bird of Prey you can swap out pieces just like the Federation. 

It’s one of the things that the community is very vocal about and definitely wants and that really is our philosophy, what the community wants then that’s where we are going to put our development money into.  Making sure that they get unique PvE episodes down the road, those are definitely things that we are doing.



Ten Ton Hammer: Are there any changes coming for PvP?

Craig: In the first update we are adding Fed vs. Fed because there is so much PvP going on in the game.

Bill: I think the good thing with introducing Fed vs. Fed PvP is that it will make it easier to get into a PvP match, there will be a larger pool of players and you won’t have to wait as long for the Klingon player.

Craig:  We just have to make sure that as the Klingon population increases that we don’t harm that aspect of PvP with the Fed vs. Fed, we don’t want to kill that off.  So that the Fed vs. Klingon is the thing that everybody wants, but the Fed vs. Fed is the stepping stone in between.
 
Ten Ton Hammer: Anything else interesting for Star Trek Online that you want the community to know about that we haven’t touched on yet?

Craig:  The big thing is that Season One, the first update is coming soon and it has a whole lot of great stuff in it, more fleet actions, IPvP matches, and another special task force that is pretty cool. And then after that it’s not a question of  “ok look we’re working on this update and we will see you in a couple months” it will be every couple of weeks we are dropping something, every couple of weeks we are implementing that feature that the forums are screaming about.  We are really trying to address those issues that the community really wants to see.

Bill: I think the new special task force missions that are coming out are really awesome, I have been playing them myself internally and they are very different from what players expect.
 
Craig: Yes!

Bill: Which the players found out the first time they tried them. 

Craig:  Like “oh it’s just an episode I’ll get a pick up group and run through it” and then “oh man we are getting owned!”

Bill: I love the fact they are a strong challenge for high end players, we hear that all the time “we want our hard content.” Like on Champs, we have been working on a new high end difficult thing for players to get through where they have to think and not just throw out massive damage, and I think that’s the great thing about the Special Task Force missions.

Craig: And there are two more in the pipeline, there are four planned, and two are being actively worked on now.

We want to thank Bill and Craig for sitting down with us, conference based interviews are usually a rushed affair as you plow on ahead to your next appointment, but they gave up the ability to have a quiet relaxing breakfast to answer our questions and we appreciate it. The one underlying theme that we took away from our meeting was the continued commitment they, and Cryptic, have in listening to the community and never settling or just staying the course. While it’s impossible to please all of the people all of the time, it is apparent that there is a strong desire to do right by the players and give them the worlds they want to inhabit.